Just for info:
Pianos are tuned by twisting a steel pin that sits in a wood board.
Old pianos sometimes have the holes enlarged, or have small splits in the wood, and won't hold a tune, the pins will untwist under the tension of the string.
One cure is to remove the pins, redrill the holes, and install bigger pins. But that's expensive and many pianos aren't worth it, or the board isn't in good enough shape.
Another cure is to tip the piano over so the board is flat, and drip a bit of crazy glue into the base of each pin.
It has to be very thin glue.

So, how does Wonderlok 'Em work?
I have never used it and when I tried doing a Google search and a YouTube
search I didn't find anything that explains how it works, or why it works,
differently from other glue-type products.
I have tried using Gorilla Glue for chairs, thinking that the Gorilla Glue
expands (which it does), but I didn't like the end results.
Does the Wonderlok 'Em expand and/or does it stay slightly flexible rather
than becoming brittle like ordinary wood glue?

Thanks. I appreciate the explanation of how it works. That sounds much
better than the way that Gorilla Glue worked for me the one time that I
tried it. I'll definitely try Wonderlok 'Em the next time that I have loose
furniture joints that need fixing. Right now, I am looking around to see if
I can find an excuse to try it and see how it works -- checking out chairs
etc.
I was surprised that there were no YouTube videos about it, or at least I
couldn't find any. I would think that the company would want to create such
a video for marketing purposes.

no, sorry, it was one of those off-the-shelf syringes
at the local hardware store so you might find something
similar.
i'm not talking about rubber cement type flexible, just
a type that has a little give to it so it doesn't shatter.
most work done was to get the surfaces cleaned up (both
times grr!) and then clamping while the glue set.
songbird

That would be good. I don't remmeber needing it before, but I know if I
have some, I'll need it.

Some times I t hink of all the things we threw away when I was little,
because the only glues they had, or we knew about, were Elmer's white
glue and Duco Cement (which my mother kept buying but never worked at
all for me.)

Thanks. I'll keep my eyes open.
What I like for cloth is contact cement. It really bends

Because of all the snipping and because I don't read Subject lines, only
now I see -- a little too late -- that pianos are not the topic of the
thread, but since I wrote this all, I'll post it for those of you with
pianos.
I'm 99% sure you don't always need to redrill the hole. I'm 99% sure
that in college, I replaced one pin with a larger one without any
drilling. Indeed the piano repairman at the Kimball Piano Company** who
gave me the peg didn't say anything about redrilling. I guess the new
pin was just a little bit bigger than the old. (I know I had no drill
and I didn't drill anything. The only other possibility is that I just
tapped the old pin in harder.) Whatever I did, it worked at least
until I left Chicago 5 years later.
**The repair department was on the 4th or 5th floor of their store on
State Street in downtown Chicago. Then I just called up to find out
where it was, took the eleveater up and asked a couple questions, and
the first guy sort of put me on a tour, to one guy who sent me to the
next guy to a total of about four guys, each of whom showed me what he
did and gave me parts to use.
Then maybe back to the first guy who gave me the address of the
wholesale piano parts store in Chcaog and his name to use so I could get
50% off the wholesale price.
I'm no poor college student anymore but this stuff might be easily
available on the web now, to anyone (at almost retail price, but still
cheap.
To put in a new peg YOU MUST SUPPORT THE SOUND BOARD ON THE PIANO BOARD
4 INCHES BENEATH IT (assuming it's a grand so the other board is
*beneath* it. Beside it for an upright.) Or the sound board will
crack and the piano will be worthless. Though the fraternity didn't
have much scrap wood, I was lucky enough tofind a block of wood 4x4" or
more just the right height that I had to push to get it in place. There
was no slack and no extra. And then I still tapped softly, getting
gradually a little harder until the pin went in.
You'll also probably need new wire for that string. Unless maybe you
wrapped the coil around the pin before putting the pin in. I know I
restrung one pair of keys but I'm not sure if it was t hat one or
another. (In a way it couldnt' have been that one, because if the
string were broken, as one was, I couldnt' have tried retightening it.)
To get the right wire you need to provide the key, B flat 2 octaves
above middle C, or something like that. And you need to provide THE
HARP SIZE. Pianos come in several sizes and the harp (I think it is
called) size is a letter from A? to E or F reverse-embossed** in the
harp, The same diameter string on a different size harp would give a
different pitch, so you need the harp size and the key. But some spare
too because piano wire is the strongest wire and it might come in handy.
Very hard to bend, however.
**What's the word for reverse-embossed, where the letter sticks out
*away* from the surface?
And you'll probably need a tuning wrench. The pegs are square but
they're in a crowd and hard to get any other wrench on them.
And someone wth a good enough ear to tune them. With multi-string keys,
first you dampen all but one string, and tune it, then you tune the
other strings to match that oner, listening until the beat frequency
disappears. I'm sure more about how to do that is online, but it's
worth mentioning that it's impossible to perfectly tune a piano. If
you make every third an accurate third and every fifth an accurate
fifth, you won't get an accurate octave!!! So tuning is a compromise.
I guess that is one reason they came out with the well tempered clavier,
in which the frequency ratio between every pair of consecutive keys is
the same, iiuc. But the piano is a millon times more popular.
I also needed a few ivories and black keys (ebony). IIRC the phone
receptionist at Kimballs told me to call Lyon and Healy, and for sure
the phone receptionist at Lyon and Healy told me to call their repair
location in some industrial n'hood of Chicago. But I didnt have to go
there. As soon as I started in on what I wanted he interrupted with
What's your address. And he mailed me a big back of used ivories (many
with cigarette burns but plenty without too.) and plenty of black keys.
I don't know where the rest of the bag is or the rest of the piano wire.
I might have left the bag behind on purpose but I know I had the piano
wire for several years and I never would have given it away, since
before the web, once I left chicago, I had no idea where to buy more.
Oh well.

I don't think it matters....I would start small so you don't risk
splitting the arm of the chair....just need to fill a little space left
by wood aging and shrinking. The glue will bond it all together and in
my experience Gorilla Wood Glue is very strong. It also foams, helping
to fill space. Gotta be ready to wipe off the little bit that oozes as
it cures.

It came in a plastic or metal squeeze tube, with iirc a metal screw one
screwed in to seal it. The screw wire on the outside of the tube was
bent into a diamond shape. so it was easy to unscrew. Although the glue
didn't stick to it anyhow.
Maybe I wasn't the only one for whom it never worked.

PlioBond was the go-to glue when Lepages Household Cement (Duco)
didn't do the job back when I was growing up.
For shoes, Shoe-Goo works pretty good.for patching uppers.
I had a pair of good shoes with the heals worn down - to the point
they had holes in them. Moulded heal/sole assembly.
I had a set of "Black Cat" replacement heals floating around from a
decade or so ago the construction of the integrated heal/sole
precluded nailing them on, so I grabbed a part-tube of urethane
windsheild mounting adhesive from the glass-shop. That stuff sticks
like snott to virtually anything - except the plastic the heals are
made of----.. I had a bottle of InstaCure+ from Kroeger Inc that was
getting a bit thick so I slopped some onto the edge of the heals and
stuck them on. Over a month of daily wear and they are still on..

The tuning pins come in 7 sizes, spanning a total of .030" from SH1 to
SH7, so you DEFINITELY do not drill the tuning block!!

Never attempt to turn a tuning pin with anythong other than a tuning
key, or you will end up replacing tuning pins.

You can accurately tune a piano with an application on your smart
phone - but an "accurately tuned" piano does not sound right. There is
a "flavour" I think they call it, to a piano that requires at least
some of the strings to be slightly off theoretical tune to sound
right.

That's what I thought.
I'm also right that there are piano parts for sale online, duh**
I don't know if one should use them or not but one of them was metal
tuning pin bushings.
"Easy to install. Solves the problem of loose tuning pins. Push
bushings into the hole up to the shoulder, and then drive tuning pin in.
The outer surface of the bushing is embossed to insure firm hold on pin
block. One bushing is equal to two sizes larger tuning pin."
http://www.howardpianoindustries.com/metal-tuning-pin-bushings/
The cheapest tuning hammer they have is 40 dollars, but my vague
recollection is that I paid 10 or 20 dollars 49 years ago. So it's
actually cheaper now than it was then, plus then I think I was paying
50% of wholesale. (Unless of course $5 then seemed like 40 now, but
I don't think so.)
The page for bushings also has a video. Haven't looked at it yet, but
there might be other videos.
Caution: Story from here until the end.
A long time ago I took a bike trip from Wilson North Carolina to NYC
with two friends. We were supposed to ride in the morning and evening
and sightsee during the heat of the day, but we never sight-saw. When I
found out it was 100 degrees, I bowed out. I was almost to Virginai but
I decided to hitchhike back to DC and take the train from there. My
last ride of the day was a guy with a Mohawk haircut, who told me he'd
been in prison, who said he was unemployed, had to move from the house
he was in because they had no money, and who had "I found it" stickers
all over his dashboard and kitchen. I took my bike and went to eat at
a fast food place but I accepted his offer to stay there that night. I
even took a shower and imagined the curtain would open at any minute to
a guy with a butcher knife.
After the shower he said, "I've got a book you might be interested in."
I thought, "Here it comes. He's going to try to get me to join some
imitation-Mohawk religion or something." He brought me the book and it
was "How to repair pianos." We had not discussed pianos at all, but he
was right, I was very interested. This was a few years after repairing
the fraternity's piano in Chicago

BTW, the guys at Kimball gave me felt, hammers, some wooden parts I
don't remember the name of, the tuning pin, the piano wire (I had to
make a second trip after learning the harp size) and maybe a little
more. Every guy gave me something. Maybe they were happy to get an
interested visitor.
And they are probably who told me to call Lyon and Healy (another brand
of piano, and iirc the only place in Chicago that refurbished keyboards
themselves..)

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